consonant shifts

In our previous issue we
discussed the descendants of the Indo-European root *keu-, a list
which includes not only cup, coop, and cube but also
hip, hop and hoop.
This occasioned one reader to state that he would, naturally, take our
word for it but expressed bafflement nonetheless. How does a K turn into
an H? Well, the short answer is that it simply does. Sometimes.

Consonants, as spoken, tend to
drift over time and this drifting is often made more apparent by
geographical separation. At the time of the Roman Empire, people in
Italy, France and Spain made bread with farina (Latin,
"flour"). Italians still use farina, the French bake
with farine but in Spain it has become harina (Spanish,
"flour"). In this instance the parent language, Latin, is well
known but in many cases the consonant shifts happened before a language
was ever written, as with Indo-European. Take, for example, the English
word brother. Similar words for "brother" are found
throughout the European languages and even in Iranian and the languages
of northern India: Old English brošor, Dutch broeder,
Welsh brawd, Russian brat, Avestan (an ancient Persian
language) bratar, Sanskrit bhratar, Greek phrater and Latin frater.
As none of these languages evolved from any of the others, we can assume
that they share a prehistoric ancestor. We call that ancestor
Indo-European though, technically, we should write that *Indo-European,
with an asterisk to indicate that it is hypothetical and unrecorded.

You may be wondering about phrater andfrater.
All the other languages had words beginning with br- orbhr-
but Latin and Greek have a fr- sound. What gives? Well, the Indo-European consonant bh-
shifted to f- in just two languages, Latin and Greek. Notice that French, being
derived from Latin, has frčre "brother".

One of the interesting properties
of consonant shifts is that they tend to re-occur independently. Thus,
where one language will have an h, another will have an s.
This h-s equivalence is to be seen in Greek and Latin - words
such as hexa, hepta, and herpes (Greek for "six","seven",
and "snake") are clearly cognate with sexa, septa,
and serpens (Latin for "six","seven", and
"snake"). Precisely the same h-s parallel is also
to be found in a completely separate branch of the Indo-European
family: ahura and haoma, ("god" and
"nectar") in
Avestan are asura and soma ("demi-god" and
"nectar") in Sanskrit.

Here is a chart of some known
correspondences between the consonants of the Indo-European languages.

CONSONANTS

Stops

Cont.*

Sonorants

unvoiced

voiced

voiced aspirate

nasal

liquid

glide

*Indo-European

p

t

k

kw

b

d

g

gw

bh

dh

gh

gwh

s

m

n

r

l

i/y

w/u

Sanskrit

p

t

s

k/c

b

d

j

g/j

bh

dh

h

gh/h

s

m

n

r/l

l/r

y

v

Hittite

p

t

s

ku

p

t

k

ku

p

t

k

ku

s

m

n

r

l

y

w

Tocharian

p

t

s

k

p

t(c)

k

k

p

t

k

k

s

m

n

r

l

y

w

Old Persian

p

t

th

k

b

d

g/d

g/j

b

d

g/d

g/j

h

m

n

r

l

y

v

Avestan

p

t

s

k/c

b

d

z/g

g/j

b

d

g/z

g/j

h

m

n

r

l

y

v

Old Church Slavonic

p

t

s

k/c'/c

b

d

z

g/z'/z

b

d

z

g/z'/z

s

m

n

r

l

j

v

Lithuanian

p

t

k

g

b

d

z

g

b

d

z

g/z'/z

s

m

n

r

l

j

v

Greek

p

t

k

p/t/k

b

d

g

b/d/g

ph

th

kh

ph/th/kh

h

m

n

r

l

h/z

-

Latin

p

t

c

qu

b

d

z

v/gu

f(b)

f(d)

h

f

s

m

n

r

l

j

v

Old Irish

-

t

c

c

b

d

z

b

b

d

g

g

-

m

n

r

l

j

f

Armenian

h

th

s

kh

p

t

c

k

b

d

z(j)

g

h

m

n

r

l

y

g/v

Gothic

f

th

h(j)

hw/w

p

t

k

qu

b

d

g

b/g

s

m

n

r

l

j

w

Common Germanic

f

th

h

hw

p

t

k

kw/k

b

d

g

b/g

s

m

n

r

l

j

w

Old English

f

th

h

hw

p

t

k

cw/k

b

d

g

b/g

s

m

n

r

l

g(y)

w

Old Norse

f

th

h

hv

p

t

k

kv

b

d

g

b/g

s

m

n

r

l

-

v

Old High German

f

d

h

hw/w

p/pf

z

k

qu

b

t/d

g

b/g

s

m

n

r

l

j

w

Middle Dutch

v

th/d

h

w

p

t

k

qu

b

d

g

b/g

s

m

n

r

l

g

w

If you take a look
at the third column, you will see that a k in Indo-European
translates to a c in Latin but it becomes an h in Old
English. Thus, Latin inherited the Indo-European *keu- ("bent",
"curved", "domed") as cu- (cube,
etc.) while English has words beginning with h- (like hoop, heap,
and height). The Greek equivalent is k but, as we acquired
most of our Greek words from Latin, this usually became softened to a c
(as in cymbal).

Now let's see how brother
works in this scheme. For the sake of clarity we have eliminated all but
the relevant letters and repeated the r.

*Indo-European

*bh

*r

*t

*r

*bhrater

Sanskrit

bh

r/l

t

r/l

bhratar

Avestan

b

r

t

r

bratar

Greek

ph

r

t

r

phrater

Latin

f(b)

r

t

r

frater

Old Irish

b

r

t

r

brater

Old English

b

r

th

r

brošor
(brothor)

Old Norse

b

r

th

r

brošir
(brothir)

Old High German

b

r

d

r

bruodar

Middle Dutch

b

r

th/d

r

broeder

Works pretty well, doesn't it?

In case you were
wondering...

"Cont."
stands for "continuants".

A
dash (-) signifies a missing consonant. Old Irish, for
example, lost the letter p. [They should try looking
down the back of the sofa - M&M]

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